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Existing research has concluded that accounting quality is influenced not only by the quality of accounting standards, but also by enforcement systems. Therefore, enforcement is one of the key factors for ensuring International Financial Reporting Standards’ (IFRS) compliance and achieving accounting quality. However, one still does not know what has been studied about this relationship in scientific literature. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to identify, recap and evaluate the current state of research on the relationship between IFRS enforcement and accounting quality, to provide a critical overview of publications in this field and to identify future areas of interest.

Supported by a structured literature review, this paper fills in a research gap by conducting a scientometric analysis of papers on the relationship between IFRS enforcement and accounting quality construed in a broad sense. It reviews papers published between 2006 and 2019 selected from the Web of Science database, particularly analyzing main journals, authors, geographic areas of study, methods used, specific topics explored and future lines of research to be developed.

Main findings show a shortage of studies analyzing IFRS enforcement practices in individual countries and, in turn, the impact these practices may have on the accounting quality. This gap calls for further research to know the effectiveness of the IFRS-related enforcement mechanisms.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous scientometric studies focused on the enforcement of IFRS and accounting quality. This study fills this research gap and improves the understanding about what has been published on the topic, also proposing an agenda for future research that can help regulators to adjust policies for the implementation and enforcement of IFRS.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the turnover‐performance relation depends on the proportion of outside directors and institutional ownership concentration and to explore the relative roles of accounting‐ and stock‐based performance measures in the process of CEO dismissals.

Probit analysis using an unbalanced panel of the top 460 UK listed companies from 1990 to 1998 was employed.

No evidence of effective board monitoring was found. On the other hand, evidence of institutional shareholder activism was found. In particular, when institutional concentration is high, the turnover‐performance link is more negative in relation to stock returns but less negative in relation to accounting performance. This is consistent with institutional investors using a richer set of information than that contained in reported accounting earnings.

Further research may examine the effect of board monitoring on the turnover‐performance relation after considering the endogeneity of board structure and membership. Moreover, further research may examine the complementarity of the two governance mechanisms considered, i.e. the board of directors and institutional investors.

In the aftermath of Enron and other corporate frauds world‐wide, the paper exploits a unique dataset of institutional ownership and provides additional evidence on the controversial role of boards and institutional investors in replacing inefficient CEOs, as well as on the role of accounting information in the effectiveness of governance processes.

This paper provides evidence regarding the efficacy of the “comply or explain” approach in Greece and has three objectives: to improve our knowledge of the concept of this accountability mechanism, to elevate auditors’ potential role in the control of corporate governance (CG) statements and to contribute to the discussion about the reform of this principle; a prolonged dialogue that has been started by European Commission in the light of the recent financial crisis.

The approach taken is a content analysis of CG statements and Web sites of a non-probability sample of 144 Greek listed companies on the Athens Stock Exchange for the year 2011. Particularly, 52 variables were evaluated from an audit compliance perspective using a coding scheme. From this procedure, the level of compliance with Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) code, as well as the content of the explanations provided for non-compliance, were rated.

The results show that although the degree of compliance is low (the average governance rating is 35.27 per cent), the evaluation of explanations of non-compliance is even lower (from the 64.73 per cent of the non-compliance, the 40.95 per cent provides no explanation at all).

The research limitations are associated with the content analysis methodology, as well as the reliability of CG statements.

This study indicates that companies on the one hand tend to avoid the compliance with these recommendation practices, raising questions regarding the effectiveness of the SEV code; while on the other, they are not in line with the spirit of the CG code, as they do not provide adequate explanations. These results assist practitioners and/or policy-makers in perceiving the efficacy of the “comply or explain” approach.

While there is a great body of research that has looked into the compliance with best practices, this study is different because it is the first one that rates not only the degree of the compliance with the code’s practices but also the content of the explanations provided for non-compliance. This is particularly interesting because it adds to the body of research by providing a new approach in measuring the quality of the “comply or explain” principle in-depth.

The purpose of this paper is to look inside the “black box” in corporate governance (CG) measurement, and shed some light on how to construct a transparent, reliable and valid index, considering equally both the academics and practitioners’ perspectives.

A synthesized literature review is presented and a CG index is developed combining the strengths of three different methodologies: the Delphi method, the classical test theory (CTT) and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). This approach helps authors to break the process into separate steps and to select the appropriate techniques to support their decision regarding the norms, the criteria, the variables and the weights that someone should use to construct a CG index.

The authors’ analysis indicates that a well-designed CG index requires a combination of research methods to identify the best options to solve several methodological issues in index construction. For the application of this multi-methodology in Greece, the authors used two equal and independent samples to explore the different perspectives regarding the importance of the index criteria and sub-criteria. This process provides evidence that the opinion of academics and practitioners in Greece tend to converge. Moreover, it is found that this multi-methodology produces the highest variation in CG scores and ranking orders, as opposed to a traditional approach, in measuring CG disclosure, an important issue with econometric implications.

The limitations of this study are associated with the methods used.

This paper provides practical implications for investors and commercial vendors. For the former, it highlights the need to be more cautious and/or suspicious when they use CG ratings, meaning that they should comprehend the base of the ratings models, and for the latter, it demonstrates the importance of enhancing the transparency in CG indices construction.

The value of the paper lies in improved understanding of the methodological issues in constructing CG indices. This is quite interesting because this approach could serve as a roadmap for other researchers.